Two long-standing arguments against the New Democratic Party were weakened by the success of the Alberta's provincial arm this week, said NDP MP Nathan Cullen on Thursday.
"One is that they suggest we can't form government - that's obviously not true - and second, that they're going to try to scare people about an NDP government," said the federal Skeena-Bulkley Valley representative. "Well, if Albertans weren't scared about that prospect then clearly the fear game doesn't work for the Liberals or Conservatives."
The sweeping win of premier-elect Rachel Notley and her New Democrats, unseating more than four decades of conservative rule, shows that anything is possible and that NDP success at the provincial level could translate to federal gains.
"It shows the Canadian political landscape is shifting and it's important in a lot of ways I don't think we yet understand," said Cullen. "If I told you five years ago that the two strong foundations for the NDP would be Quebec and Alberta, there would be a lot of people ready to laugh at me, yet things change. And when they change, they sometimes settle in as we've seen in Quebec."
While the full implications of an NDP Alberta remain to be seen, some have already said it spells doom for Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline, which would transport oilsands crude to Kitimat.
Calling it "another nail in the coffin" for the project, Cullen said Notley isn't going to be actively pushing for it.
"They've been dragging this dead horse around for a while," he said. "(Former Alberta premier) Jim Prentice worked for Northern Gateway and didn't get it any further down the road."
But as enthusiasm lags for pipeline projects, interest in transporting crude oil by rail may spike, which has local government leaders worried.
During a Thursday morning session at the North Central Local Government Association annual general meeting in Prince George, local government delegates strongly endorsed a resolution calling for the federal government to create a "comprehensive national strategy for the rail transportation of dangerous and hazardous goods by 2020."
"While many, large-scale disasters have become widely publicized by the media, they are many more yet that do not become common knowledge," said the resolution sponsored by the NCLGA executive. "The social and economic threat these disasters pose are only magnified when couple with the significant ecological and environmental damage any sort of dangerous goods spill incur."
A recent agreement between the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and federal government requires rail companies to provide municipalities with data about the nature and volume of goods passing through every three months.
Last week, Canadian and U.S. officials announced coming improvements to tank car design, with the old ones being phased out by 2025. But it doesn't do enough to help prepare first responders, said NCLGA president Brian Frenkel.
"Incidences keep happening," said Frenkel. "That's great (the better containers are) announced but we need these things to work faster and quicker because they're going through our communities. And who's going to be the first responder? It's going to be our staff."
Cullen agreed that better provisions and resources were required for moving any toxic goods by rail.
"We've just seen it again and again. And every time there's another spill, another accident... there's this terribly slow response time and the government says 'don't worry, we have world class standards,'" said Cullen, faulting the Conservative government for cutting rail inspections and safety standards. "I don't think pushing bad pipeline projects and then threatening us with even worse rail projects is the solution. I think we just need to have a set of rules and the conversation in this country where we actually support safe transport of dangerous goods."
